Page 24 of A Very Happy Halloween

“Yes to which one?”

“Both.”

I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. This man was impossible. Frustrating, demanding, bossy. Hot. So, so hot.

He leaned in closer. “I forgot to look for the nipples.”

“Okay. Okay! You win. Fine, pay for the damn stuff.”

There was a round of applause as he handed over his credit card, and I wasn’t even sure who folks were clapping for. Nothing would ever be easy with Eisen Renner, but for the first time in years, I felt alive. Energised.

Maybe even happy.

“Does that count as a fight?” he asked as we headed back to his SUV, and I didn’t miss the note of hope in his voice.

“We’re taking things slow, remember? No make-up sex today.”

“Will you yell at me if I buy you dinner?”

“Probably.”

“Indian? Chinese? Italian?” he asked. “Or sushi?”

Eis didn’t get that body from curry and carbs. “Sushi’s your favourite?”

He nodded.

“Then we’ll have sushi.”

We actually did go to the nature reserve—Primrose needed a walk—but there were far too many people around for us to get up to any funny business, much to Eis’s disappointment. Primrose had been Elizabeth Renner’s service dog, I found out, which was why she knew how to open doors. Plus she could turn lights on and off and pick up objects if you dropped them. When we got back, Eis gave me a proper tour of Twilight’s End and its rabbit warren of rooms. It turned out he didn’t own the house, not completely. The estate belonged to Edie too, and he owned half of the house in Kensington where she spent most of her time. It was clear from the way he spoke that he adored his little sister.

Eis had converted a barn beside the walled garden into a gym, complete with a fight cage, but he hadn’t touched the old stables because Edie loved horses, and they figured that if either of them ever had a little girl who wanted a pony, it would need somewhere to live. There was the pool, a sauna, a steam room, a hot tub, a games room, a movie theatre… I began to see why Eis never left the place.

Dinner was delivered, and I thought we’d eat in the kitchen or the dining room or maybe the orangery, but instead, he led me to the fanciest of the three staircases.

“How long have we got?” he asked.

“At least two hours.”

Steven had taken Harry to watch a football match, but because he only had two tickets, he’d left Alfie behind with Luisa. Which was apparently okay because Alfie “doesn’t really get football anyway.”

It wasn’t okay.

Luisa’s idea of childcare was to give the boys snacks and sit them in front of the TV, or worse, let them loose with craft materials. Earlier in the year, she’d sent Alfie home with a Lego brick superglued to his forehead. And the snacks were always the unhealthy, sugary kind, which meant both boys would be bouncing off the walls until the early hours and I’d get no sleep again.

But that was a problem for later.

Right now, I faced a much bigger challenge.

I will not lose my clothes, I will not lose my clothes, I will not lose my clothes.

You have to understand, waxing hadn’t been high on my list of priorities these past few months, and the area between my legs resembled an overgrown wasteland. I needed to go on a crash diet, do three hundred crunches a day, and buy every cellulite-busting cream on the market in the hope that one of them worked.

Eis got to the top of the main staircase and opened a door we’d walked past earlier. I’d assumed it was a closet, but inside, a narrow spiral staircase wound upwards to a cosy room that contained a couch, a coffee table, and a bookcase. Half a dozen steps at one end led to a funny little platform under a dome.

“This was my grandfather’s observatory.” Eis flipped a switch on the wall, and the whole ceiling rolled back to reveal the sparkling sky above. “His favourite room in the house, and mine too. This might be the last night this year that it’s warm enough to open the roof.”

“It’s…it’s beautiful.” And so unexpected. My favourite room was the library with its floor-to-ceiling shelves and rolling ladders, but this came a close second.

---